The United States and its key intelligence allies are quietly working behind the scenes to kneecap a mounting movement in the United Nations to promote a universal human right to online privacy, according to diplomatic sources and an internal American government document obtained by The Cable.

The diplomatic battle is playing out in an obscure U.N. General Assembly committee that is considering a proposal by Brazil and Germany to place constraints on unchecked internet surveillance by the National Security Agency and other foreign intelligence services. American representatives have made it clear that they won’t tolerate such checks on their global surveillance network. The stakes are high, particularly in Washington – which is seeking to contain an international backlash against NSA spying – and in Brasilia, where Brazilian President Dilma Roussef is personally involved in monitoring the U.N. negotiations.

The Brazilian and German initiative seeks to apply the right to privacy, which is enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to online communications. Their proposal, first revealed by The Cable, affirms a “right to privacy that is not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with their privacy, family, home, or correspondence.” It notes that while public safety may “justify the gathering and protection of certain sensitive information,” nations “must ensure full compliance” with international human rights laws. A final version the text is scheduled to be presented to U.N. members on Wednesday evening and the resolution is expected to be adopted next week.

Members of the German government will use encrypted phones as part of ‘urgent’ guidelines to protect against NSA snooping. The encryption software is not compatible with Apple, so Germany will phase out the use of iPhones at government level.

Germany’s two main political parties - the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) – have agreed on new guidelines to ensure ministers are protected from having their communications intercepted by spy agencies. As part of the new regulations, politicians and high-ranking officials will be required to make calls on encrypted phones.

Software approved by Germany’s Bonn Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) will be used to protect phones from outside meddling. The program itself is incompatible with Apple technology, so German ministers will be forbidden from using iPhones for official communications, reports newspaper The Local.

Recently leaked documents from Edward Snowden, revealed in the New York Times, show the NSA had a plan to rapidly expand its authority. The leaked papers, dated February 2012, detail the NSA’s four-year plan to update and increase its methods for gathering intelligence by intercepting foreign and domestic communications.

The document, titled “Sigint Strategy 2012–2016,” claims the NSA intends to “aggressively pursue legal authorities and a policy framework mapped more fully to the information age.”

“The interpretation and guidelines for applying our authorities, and in some cases the authorities themselves, have not kept pace with the complexity of the technology and target environments, or the operational expectations levied on N.S.A.’s mission,” the NSA says.

(Reuters) - British and U.S. intelligence officials say they are worried about a “doomsday” cache of highly classified, heavily encrypted material they believe former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has stored on a data cloud.
The cache contains documents generated by the NSA and other agencies and includes names of U.S. and allied intelligence personnel, seven current and former U.S. officials and other sources briefed on the matter said.

Toronto woman is shocked after she was denied entry into the U.S.
because she had been hospitalized for clinical depression.

Ellen Richardson went to Pearson airport on Monday full of joy about flying to New York City and from there going on a 10-day Caribbean cruise for which she’d paid about $6,000.
…
“I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ said Richardson, who is a paraplegic and set up her cruise in collaboration with a March of Dimes group of about 12 others.
…
The agent gave her a signed document which stated that “system checks’’ had found she “had a medical episode in June 2012’’ and that because of the “mental illness episode’’ she would need a medical evaluation before being accepted.
…
“The incident in 2012 was hospitalization for depression. Police were not involved,’’ McGhee said. “I’ve asked Deb Matthews to tell me if she’s aware of any provincial or federal authority to allow U.S. authorities to have access to our medical records. Medical records are supposed to be strictly confidential. ’’
U.S. authorities “do not have access to medical or other health records for Ontarians travelling to the U.S.,’’ said health ministry spokeswoman Joanne Woodward Fraser, adding the ministry could not provide any additional information.

The federal government is seeking a firm that “continuously monitors social media content on a daily basis in near real time and (can) provide web-based, online media metrics and reporting capabilities.”

Got an offer in this morning’s post from one of the big consumer finance companies to provide “digital risk insurance”. This would protect me and my family from attacks on our ‘e-reputation’, from identity theft, and against legal proceedings arising out of purchase of goods or services online.

Mr Justice Kelly was granting an application by Jonathan Newman, for Sony, Warner Music and Universal, for orders requiring UPC, Vodafone, Digiweb, Hutchison 3G and Telefonica Ireland to block access by their subscribers to the KAT website.

The US National Security Agency collects and logs almost 5 billion cellphone records each day indicating a user’s location around the world, according to a new report from the records leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The program gives intelligence analysts the ability to track the movements of individuals throughout the world and map any social connections they have. Though suspicions have been high that geo-location was included within the intelligence agency’s widespread surveillance data nets, the latest report looks to be the first real confirmation of such an ability on an unprecedented scale.

If a politically-charged dinnertime debate sidelined your Thanksgiving, don’t blame the National Security Agency. New documents have surfaced suggesting the NSA sent their employees home for the holidays with pre-determined talking points.

Kevin Gosztola of Firedoglake published a document on Monday that was allegedly handed out to employees of the intelligence agency ahead of Thanksgiving to ensure embattled staffers would stand their ground if family members or friends berated them about the ongoing surveillance scandal started six months ago by contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Paris, 10 December 2013 — Despite the strong citizen mobilisation and the numerous reactions [fr] voiced against it, the French Senate just voted in second reading the controversial 2014-2019 Defense Bill and its dangerous terms without any changes. This vote closes parliamentary debate on this text: the French Constitutional Council alone can now alter the application of these measures infringing the basic rights of citizens. La Quadrature du Net strongly calls the members of the French Parliament to formally place the matter before the Constitutional Council for a decision on the conformity of this law to the French Constitution

Mr. Snowden is living and working in Russia under a one-year asylum. The Russian government has refused to extradite Mr. Snowden, who was indicted by the Justice Department in June on charges of espionage and stealing government property, to the United States.

Mr. Snowden has said he would return to the United States if he was offered amnesty, but it is unclear whether Mr. Obama — who would most likely have to make such a decision — would make such an offer, given the damage the administration has claimed Mr. Snowden’s leaks have done to national security.

Because the N.S.A. is still uncertain about exactly what Mr. Snowden took, government officials sometimes first learn about specific documents from reporters preparing their articles for publication — leaving the State Department with little time to notify foreign leaders about coming disclosures.

Livid after learning from Der Spiegel magazine that the Americans were listening in to her personal mobile phone, Merkel confronted Obama with the accusation: “This is like the Stasi.”
The newspaper also reported that Merkel was particularly angry that, based on the disclosures, “the NSA clearly couldn’t be trusted with private information, because they let Snowden clean them out.”
Snowden is to testify on the NSA scandal to a European parliament inquiry next month, to the anger of Washington which is pressuring the EU to stop the testimony.
In Brussels, the chairman of the US House select committee on intelligence, Mike Rogers, a Republican, said his views on the invitation to Snowden were “not fit to print” and that it was “not a great idea”

Livid after learning from Der Spiegel magazine that the Americans were listening in to her personal mobile phone, Merkel confronted Obama with the accusation: “This is like the Stasi.”
The newspaper also reported that Merkel was particularly angry that, based on the disclosures, “the NSA clearly couldn’t be trusted with private information, because they let Snowden clean them out.”
Snowden is to testify on the NSA scandal to a European parliament inquiry next month, to the anger of Washington which is pressuring the EU to stop the testimony.
In Brussels, the chairman of the US House select committee on intelligence, Mike Rogers, a Republican, said his views on the invitation to Snowden were “not fit to print” and that it was “not a great idea”